CCHI Certification Requirements, Explained in Plain Language

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters, CCHI, is one of the two organizations that issue national medical interpreter certification in the United States. Its requirements are published across several pages, in the language organizations use when they write for themselves. This article puts them in order, in plain words, with the figures as CCHI states them today.

Everything below was checked against CCHI’s own pages on September 21, 2026. Fees change, and CCHI says so on its fee page, so confirm current numbers before you pay anything.

The short answer

To be eligible you need to be 18, hold a high school diploma or its equivalent, show proficiency in English and in your other working language, and complete at least 40 hours of healthcare interpreter training. Then you take exams. Which exams depends on your language, and the structure is changing on January 1, 2027.

Who can apply

CCHI states three eligibility requirements on its eligibility page.

Age and education. You must be at least 18 and hold, at a minimum, a United States high school diploma or GED, or its equivalent from another country.
Training. You must complete at least 40 hours of healthcare interpreter training. CCHI accepts both academic and non-academic programs.
Language proficiency. You must have proficiency in English and in the primary language of service for the credential you are seeking.

Note what is not on that list. CCHI does not require work experience, and it says so directly: applicants are not required to have worked as an interpreter before taking the exams. It also does not accept experience in place of training. Years of interpreting on the job do not substitute for the 40 hours.

What counts as the 40 hours

This is where most candidates get stuck, so here is CCHI’s own definition. Its interpreter training page defines training as “learning in an instructor-led environment, including online self-paced modules.” Self-study is on its list of activities that do not count, along with performing your job as a bilingual employee, preparing for an assignment, and taking somebody else’s examination.

Beyond a single course, CCHI accepts any combination of academic courses in medical interpreting, non-academic training courses, hours added together from several courses or conference sessions, continuing education courses, developing or teaching interpreter training, and documented on-the-job training. For on-the-job hours the documentation has to name the topics covered, the hours for each topic and the dates, and it must be on the employer’s letterhead and signed.

One useful detail: CCHI puts no time limit on when the training was completed. Training you did years ago still counts, though CCHI encourages candidates to review current standards of practice before testing.

We go through what does and does not count in more detail in our explainer on the 40-hour training requirement.

CCHI sets the bar at 40 hours of training, proficiency in both languages, and a high school diploma. Experience does not substitute for any of them.

The three credentials, and the change in 2027

CCHI currently offers three credentials, set out on its certifications page, and which path you take is decided by your language.

CoreCHI is a knowledge exam delivered in English and open to interpreters of any language. It is 100 multiple-choice questions, 15 of which are unscored, with two hours to complete it, taken either at a test center or online with a live proctor, according to CCHI’s exam description. CCHI has announced that CoreCHI will be officially discontinued effective January 1, 2027.

CHI is the full certification with a bilingual performance exam, and it exists for three languages: Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish. CCHI’s description of the CHI exam puts it at 60 minutes and eight items, weighted about three quarters to consecutive interpreting, with the remainder split among simultaneous interpreting, sight translation, and translating a healthcare document. The sight translation passages are short, three sentences or fewer. The CHI exam is administered only at physical test centers in the United States and Canada, and it must be taken and passed within 12 months of passing CoreCHI.

CoreCHI-Performance, written CoreCHI-P, is the path for every other language. Instead of a bilingual exam, candidates take a monolingual English-to-English performance exam called ETOE, which tests listening comprehension, shadowing, memory capacity, restating meaning, equivalence of meaning, and reading comprehension. It is a performance exam, but it does not test your other language directly, because CCHI has no exam in most languages.

What the 2027 change means in practice: if your language is Arabic, Mandarin, or Spanish, your destination is CHI. If it is anything else, your destination is CoreCHI-P. Current CoreCHI holders move across by passing ETOE. If you are starting now, plan for the destination rather than the credential that is going away.

Any course advertising itself as CCHI approved is describing something that does not exist.

What it costs

From CCHI’s fee page, as of September 2026.

Item	Fee
Initial fee, covering a $40 application fee and the $191 CoreCHI exam	$231
CoreCHI exam retake	$191
ETOE exam, for current CoreCHI certificants	$302
CHI exam	$302
Renewal of your first credential	$300
Renewal of a second or additional credential	$30
Adding language proficiency verification in another language	$30 per language

A late renewal adds $20. A reissued certificate costs $10, and refunds carry a $12 processing fee. CCHI states that all fees are subject to change without notice, and that exam fees expire after one year if you do not use them.

So the realistic total for a Spanish interpreter reaching full CHI certification is $533, before the cost of training. For a language without a CHI exam, budget the $231 to start plus $302 for ETOE, and confirm the current sequence with CCHI because of the transition.

Keeping the credential

CCHI credentials are valid for four years from the date they are issued. Renewal costs $300 for your first credential and requires continuing education. Plan for it from the start, because a credential you let lapse is a credential you paid for twice.

What CCHI does not do

CCHI does not train interpreters, and it does not approve the programs that do. Its own words on the prerequisite programs page are that the listed programs “are offered just as examples” and that “CCHI does not approve or accredit prerequisite programs.” Any course advertising itself as CCHI approved is describing something that does not exist.

It also does not certify your language proficiency for you. That is a separate requirement you meet with your own documentation. And the certificate you receive from a training course is not certification; it is the document that makes you eligible to apply. We explain that distinction in certificate versus certification.

If you are choosing between CCHI and NBCMI

The other national body, NBCMI, has its own requirements, its own exam formats, and a different set of languages with oral exams. For most candidates the choice is decided by language rather than by preference. We compare the two in CCHI vs NBCMI: how to choose.

Start with the 40 hours

Whichever credential you are heading for, the training comes first and it has to be documented. MLT Academy’s 40-Hour Medical Interpreter Training is built to meet that requirement: 8 sections, 125 video lessons, 650 practice questions, and a 100-question final exam with an 85% passing threshold and one free retake after a 14-day wait. Instruction is in English, and you apply it to your own language pair. It is $289 for one full year of access, billed once, and the certificate of completion documents your 40 training hours for your CCHI application.

See the curriculum and enroll in MLT Academy’s 40-Hour Medical Interpreter Training

Sources

Every figure in this article comes from CCHI’s own published pages, checked on September 21, 2026. CCHI states that its fees are subject to change without notice, so confirm current amounts before paying.

Frequently asked questions

Does CCHI require work experience?

No. CCHI states that applicants are not required to have work experience before taking the examinations. It does require the 40 hours of training, and it does not accept interpreting experience as a substitute for that training.

Does CCHI accept online training?

Yes. CCHI defines training as learning in an instructor-led environment, including online self-paced modules. It does not accept self-study, meaning independent reading with no curriculum, sequencing, testing, or documented hours.

Is my training too old to count?

No. CCHI states that it has no time limit on when interpreter training was completed, though it encourages candidates to review current standards of practice and recent publications before testing.

What happens to CoreCHI in 2027?

CCHI has announced that CoreCHI will be discontinued effective January 1, 2027. Interpreters in Arabic, Mandarin, or Spanish progress to CHI. Everyone else progresses to CoreCHI-P by passing the English-to-English ETOE performance exam.

Can I take the exams at home?

The CoreCHI knowledge exam can be taken online with a live proctor or at a test center. The CHI oral exam is administered only at physical test centers in the United States and Canada.

How long does certification last?

Four years from the date CCHI issues it. Renewing your first credential costs $300 and requires continuing education.